March 2017

March 31, 2017

Even by my odd standards of sudden, intellectual preoccupations, it is rather unusual to be so taken over by a subject as esoteric as wave function collapse. It happened sometime last evening. I thought the interregnum caused by overnight sleep might distract me but quite to the contrary I woke up even more preoccupied with it.

Someone with my existential challenges should hardly have the room in my mind for such esoterica. In simple terms—simple is relative in the context of quantum mechanics—wave function collapse is about a system at the quantum level resolving to a single state from the superposition of multi-states by an act of observation. I am sure I made it even harder in simplifying it. Let me try that again. When one looks at the tiniest of worlds in the universe, that act of looking ensures that you see only a single aspect of that world at any given time.Until you looked that system of quantum particles was in all conceivable states simultaneously (superposition) but merely because you looked it offered you one. We cannot tell what quantum particles do when we are not looking at them. They could be doing everything and nothing at once. What is revealed to us as a result of our observation is just a miniscule part of a infinitesimally small world.

When you read that rather complex description you realize how weird it is to be suddenly thinking of it. For me though that is a normal state of affairs. It may have some tangential connection to the movie ‘The Man Who Knew Infinity’ about the life of the genius mathematician Srinivas Ramanujan that I was watching on YouTube. Perhaps my mind was primed by that experience.

Of the many posts I have written about quantum physics over the years, I find the one I wrote on February 17, this year rather stimulating:

Here is a fundamental problem with structures bigger than the quantum scale, which includes us humans and everything that we can see. While our mind/consciousness works at the quantum scale, the corporeal case it resides in, namely our body, does not. There is a fundamental disconnect between the two. So while mind/consciousness can assume superposition, our bodies cannot.

That we are able to harbor several contradictory thoughts simultaneously and even able to express them—a fresh case in point being President Donald Trump’s news conference yesterday—is a manifestation of the superposition that our mind/consciousness can assume like quantum particles.

Of course, the serious scientific community looks at the idea of quantum style functioning of the neurons in our brain with considerable skepticism. However,there are also those serious scientists who think that the human brain can sustain quantum superposition. I am coming around to the idea that the human mind/consciousness operates at the quantum scale. Its difficulty is that it is cased inside a body that operates at the macro, everyday scale. Our mind/consciousness can drift away to places where the body will never make it.

In a somewhat related context, I am also beginning to think that consciousness is not individual but cosmic and we are merely receivers who catch bits of it depending on where we are pointed. The idea of consciousness wafting around across the universe as a colorless, odorless, formless, limitless force that merely passes through us automatons and animates us is rather appealing to me.

If that is indeed the case, then we have to view every moment as if it was one that we just made up. In a sense we are all in a continual process of making up our experiences. This is one with my old proposition that we all carry our own personal universe in our brain. When my universe matches with yours we have concord and when it does not we have discord.

It is possible that at this point the reader is seriously concerned about my mental well-being. Objectively, I would too but subjectively it makes complete sense to me. But since it is essential that as a race we humans collectively agree on a set of common facts/truths/experiences I go along without much outward resistance. Internally though, the question of my mind/consciousness’s superposition remains active all the time.

I am not sure if you have ever felt that but there are many moments at any given time that I feel my mind/consciousness actually oscillating. It is as if the receiver in my brain is catching some signals from a distant source. One can also feel some heat radiating off one’s head.

While watching President Trump’s news conference yesterday I employed an intellectual vantage point which I always do—look at all human activity as a result of invisible quantum scale mind/consciousness residing inside an identifiable corporeal structure. From his individual standpoint, everything he was saying made perfect sense to him. To our collective experience he may have seemed disengaged from reality but to him it was perfectly normal. I say this not just of the president but all of us. He was in concord with those with a similar standpoint and discord with those with a divergent standpoint.

The best we can strive for as a species is agree on a reasonable number of commonly felt truths, facts and realities. If we cannot achieve that, we will remain a discordant world.

Coming back to wave function collapse, I think it is applicable to humans as well. When a person is not interacting with or observing another person, the latter could be in any number of unknowable positions simultaneously or superposition. However, the act of interaction reveals a particular state. Considering that residing inside the corporeal case we call the human body is another mind which operates at the quantum scale things get rather complicated.

I think it is best to abruptly conclude this post here before it goes out of hand.

March 30, 2017

On Vincent van Gogh’s 164th birth anniversary today what better way to mark it than this tribute by the Dutch genius to the Japanese master Uttagawa Hiroshige? The two, who happen to be my most favorite painters, find a remarkable convergence in this 1887 work by van Gogh titled ‘Bridge in the rain: After Hiroshige.’ Van Gogh had a fascination for Japanese art and was known to have painted his versions of famous Japanese works.

The one above is a combination of Hiroshige’s famous work ‘Rainstorm’ (see below) and his many works of people on bridges. Hiroshige created the rain effect with very fine slanted lines while van Gogh had his own version of somewhat thicker strokes.

Van Gogh’s people on the bridge do not necessarily feel Japanese unlike Hiroshige’s. Van Gogh’s lines are much harder and more angular than Hiroshige’s who did not emphasize the figures even while keeping them distinct.

One of van Gogh’s less known works is Cineraria’s dated 1885. It is much darker and without any of his normally exuberant colors.This is also a remarkable work despite its predominantly dark tones. Even the strokes have a different flourish although the flowers are very much him.

March 29, 2017

The Internet has commoditified human existence. It may have been an unintended consequence of its dramatic democratization over the last two decades but in recent years it appears to have become inevitable. At the heart of this commodification are the browsing histories of individual users. You are what you search is the core logic of this world.

The Republican Party-controlled U.S. House of Representatives yesterday voted 215-205 to overturn privacy rules that restrict the internet service providers (ISPs) from selling users’ browsing history data for commercial gain. The vote came after the Senate also voted 50-48 last Thursday along party lines to end those restrictions which were first imposed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) during the Obama era. The change of government in Washington and the rise of President Donald Trump was expected to reverse that and it has.

What this means for the over 280 million users in America should prepare for their personal browsing habits to be monetized without their consent by their ISPs. So if you are “surreptitiously” watching things that you do not want anyone to know—which was an absurd expectation in and of itself anyway—then you should forget it now. Theoretically and quite likely practically too that information can and will now be monetized by the ISPs.

So far non-ISPs such as Google and Facebook could use your browsing behavior to target ads and other offers and make billions of dollars on your back. The ISPs were rather unhappy with that order of things, arguing that if Google and Facebook could make money thus, the playing field ought to be evened out to help them as well. The FCC in the Obama era thought otherwise and imposed restrictions. The FCC in the Trump era ably aided by the two houses will now reverse it.

The newly appointed FCC chairman, Republican Ajit Pai has been known to be strongly against these privacy rules and even the idea of net neutrality. I wrote about his stance on net neutrality on January 25, 2017.

Since Google and Facebook are not ISPs but data collectors they are regulated by the Federal Trade Commission. The ISPs, including telecom companies which are regulated by the FCC, have long argued that they too should be able to monetize browsing histories like Google and Facebook. The rub lies in the fact that while people can choose not to use Google and Facebook and therefore avoid being monetized for data, the ISPs have to be used to surf the Internet. The ISPs have much greater and more diverse access to our net life even though it seems counterintuitive because of the spread of Facebook and Google.

The House and Senate bill which is expected to be signed by President Trump into law opens the doors for the ISPs, such as Comcast, Verizon and At&T, to be able to track what you browse and sell the data to advertisers without your consent. This is a significant dismantling of privacy rules on the Internet in America. Of course, one must bear in my mind that the Obama era restrictions had not yet taken effect and hence their effect was moot anyway.

What it means in simple terms is that as a net user you were targeted for specific ads based on your browsing habits. With these privacy restrictions lifted, you will be targeted for specific ads based on your browsing habits. You are a commodity that must be bought and sold except that you are being bought for no cost, without your consent, and sold at considerable profit without your consent and and any benefit.

There is some faint hope that President Trump might just shy away from signing the bill into law but that seems like ridiculous hope considering so far he has sided with big corporations in direct contrast against his electoral pretensions.

There may be advertisers who offer an opt-out option, which means you have the option of not receiving useless ads or any ads for that matter. However, given that advertisers are in it for money, they would be disinclined to offer the opt-out option.

I personally couldn’t care less what happens to my browsing history because my browsing is so random and seemingly devoid of an identifiable behavioral pattern that I seriously doubt if actionable targeted ads would work on me. More importantly, I have no money to buy anything anyway. In surfing the net for over two decades I have not intentionally clicked a single ad, let alone clicked and bought something. Buying requires having money, having money requires earning it and earning money requires someone willing to employ and pay me. That is quite a set of obstacles to overcome.

As for privacy, what’s that? Notwithstanding all that the end of those privacy restrictions sucks.

March 28, 2017

Lhasa’s elevation of nearly 12,000 feet and its resultant cool climate has attracted a whole new industry to Tibet as its increasingly deeper economic integration into China continues apace. Xinhua reports that a big data center, that will provide cloud storage facilities to Chinese companies, is coming up in Lhasa.

“Construction started on the center on Monday, with a total investment of 10.5 billion yuan (about 1.54 billion US dollars). Occupying 400,000 square meters, the center will be put into operation at the end of next year,” Xinhua reported.

The data center is expected to help Chinese companies with investment and trade ties in India, Nepal and other South Asian countries.

Climate control is an important part of such data centers which tend to generate enormous heat because of the massive processing power being constantly deployed among the networked systems. The elevation of 12,000 feet helps in cutting down energy costs.

The integration of Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) into China is a continuing process which picked up extraordinary speed with the $4.2 billion Beijing-Lhasa rail link in 2006. I had done an analysis for the IANS wire on July 5, 2006 which partly said the following:

In a powerful, albeit symbolic, assertion of its unassailable control over Tibet, China has inaugurated the 2,500-mile (over 4,000 km) railway link between Beijing and Lhasa.

With that it has railroaded any surviving hope of Tibet's independence. Unquestionably an engineering marvel, the railway line rises to the dizzying altitude of up to 16,500 feet - making it the world's highest.

Quite like the British colonial masters in the late 19th century and the early 20th century, China is using railway as an instrument of control.

The line also makes real all the worst fears of the Tibetan community- in-exile in India, including its illustrious leader, the 14th Dalai Lama.

The $4.2-billion project is expected to dramatically speed up the Sinicization of Tibet some five and half decades after the Red Army marched into Lhasa practically unchallenged.

That Beijing chose the 85th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party on July 1 for its inauguration added some extra dose of symbolism if any more was needed.

Built almost entirely by Han Chinese workers, a fact acknowledged by Chinese officials, the railway is being projected by Beijing as a sign of its commitment to Tibet's economic progress under its rule.

The data center may seem as far away from a rail link in terms of industry but in so much as both help deepen TAR’s integration into China’s economic mainstream, it is a significant step.

Passing the 16,737-foot high Tanggula pass it is the highest point traversed by a train in the world. It is an extraordinary engineering achievement.

I see the passage of 11 years between the commencement of the rail link and setting up of a big data center as a remarkably long-term vision that China has historically displayed.

On a separate note, I have been struck by a news analysis in The New York Times by Ian Johnson who writes of how China’s President Xi Jinping is reviving Buddhism in the country.

“Mr. Xi, by making China a guardian of a major faith like Buddhism, also sees religion as a way to promote China’s position in a world still dominated by the United States, which he tentatively plans to visit for a meeting with President Trump early next month.

Indeed, one of Mr. Xi’s signature lines is, “If the people have faith, the nation has hope, and the country has strength,” he writes.

As long as that Buddhism is Dalai Lama free Xi does not seem to mind it. I will do another piece on this at some point soon.

March 27, 2017

When you are self-employed the way I am, everyday is a Monday and every morning has Monday morning blues. So today is no different notwithstanding that it is indeed Monday. Speaking of Monday morning blues I remembered this painting of mine titled ‘Dumped’. It is done on a cardboard box that was destined for trash. The corrugation or ridges in the box offered interesting possibilities in the way the paint might spread.

It was perhaps the fact that I had picked up the box about to be trashed that prompted me to paint a figure—very likely a man—swaddled in white like an astronaut mummy and dumped between a row of dumpsters by a fence. I like this work not because it has some great artistic merit but because it is not derivative. The orange glow behind the blue fence could be either the sun rising or setting or it could also be from a dumpster fire. I don’t know which.

The astronaut mummy’s fate remains unknown even though I kept hoping that the person inside might suddenly emerge after tearing through the tightly wrapped shroud. I looked at the painting this morning and found that there has been no movement whatsoever in the astronaut mummy. The day that happens will also be the day when all my morning blues will end.

March 26, 2017

I avoid painting roses because they are so obvious as a subject. I have done it only twice, the one above digitally a couple of years ago, and the other, below, this morning. I grant they work visually but then so what? I get it that they are stunning. They are also edible. But as I said—so what?

March 25, 2017

Utagawa Hiroshige beckons this morning. Hiroshige is the best known early 19th century master of the ukiyo-e tradition of painting. Incidentally, ukiyo means “floating world” as an emblem of the Buddhist core philosophy of impermanence. I first wrote about him on August 3, last year. He returned with some force today.

Hiroshige produced hundreds of brilliant landscapes and other works, many of which influenced European artists, especially Vincent van Gogh who in fact printed copies of his works.

Hiroshige’s is a rich resource to choose from. I have chosen a random one. No matter what mood he might be capturing Hiroshige exudes a meditative serenity. Of all the masters I repeatedly visit, there is none who matches his extraordinary ability to calm things down even when he is not necessarily depicting a calm scene. He remains one of my all time favorite artists, often at the top of the list.

Hiroshige (1797-1858) is considered the finest exponent of the ukiyo-e tradition. The one I have chosen today is titled “Furukawa River in Hiroo”. When I zoom in on any part of the painting, I feel transported to that spot. It may not seem that way but this is a rather hard style to emulate. It is the quietude and deftness of Hiroshige’s strokes that make it so hard.

One cannot help but get lost in Hiroshige’s world as I am this morning. One feels blissful in a sedated sense of the word. I look at the people walking on the bridge and want to be in their midst or splash some water on my face from the river.

March 24, 2017

Songs are always in the air. One can never tell which one might just get captured. Since yesterday, it has been this brilliant composition by the ever redoubtable Sachin Dev Burman. He remains my most favorite Hindi cinema composer.

From the 1970 movie ‘Prem Pujari’ (Devotee of Love), starring Dev Anand and Waheeda Rehman, it was written by Neeraj and sung by the great Lata Mangeshkar. “Rangeela re tere rang mein yung ranga hai mera man,” (Oh, bohemian, I am swept off by your bohemian ways*) says the song’s first line.

Burman, who had already been in supreme command of his craft for decades by then, manages to create a superb groove within an irresistible melody. The orchestration, particularly the percussion, is captivating. There are some terrific recurring arrangements throughout such as the violins. There is a generous use of the electric synthesizer which makes me suspect that Burman’s equally gifted music composer son Rahul Dev was involved as well. He could well be. There are touches here and there that sound trademark Rahul Dev such as the triangle.

I had asked Rahul Dev Burman about this song and if he was involved. He gave me a rather ambiguous reply. “Baba (father) did use me from time to time.”

By the time he composed this song, Sachin Dev was already 64-years-old. I marvel at how modern he was in his compositions even while paying such close attention to the melodious Indian base. He died five years after ‘Prem Pujari’ but not before giving several extraordinary compositions.

He was not particularly fond of western orchestration but he did use it generously under promptings from his son and to keep his sound modern.

While playing the original number I chanced upon a version sung by a Pakistani singer called Sarwat. She sang it very competently but what stood out for me in this version was the way the Pakistani musicians managed to effectively capture Burman’s score. It sounds a bit updated, especially the percussion.

As is my habit, the song will keep playing all day today at random times and from random cues.

* That is my interpretation of Neeraj’s lyrics and not precise translation.

March 23, 2017

Here is a fundamental problem. Our bodies being physical, they are governed by the laws of physics. As for our mind, who knows? Mind is not known to be a physical entity the way we understand physical entities. It appears to be a consequence of some truly physical processes that go on inside inside our brains but by itself we don’t know what it really is. Those physical processes are, once again, governed by the laws of physics.

This has been one of my favorite themes for decades now—the physicality of the human body governed by the laws of physics and the seemingly incorporeal nature of the human mind/consciousness. Whether mind is matter is an old question whose answer remains unsatisfactory at best. It certainly appears that mind rises from a very physical environment of the human brain. Things go on in the intricate folds of our brain that give rise to what we collectively call mind or consciousness.

These thoughts swirl around in my mind as I read ‘From Bacteria to Bach to Back: The Evolution of Minds” by Daniel Dennett, a philosopher and cognitive scientist. Happily for me, while reading the Introduction I come across the very idea of human body being governed by the laws of physics. Of course, Dennett says this, “There is winding path leading through a jungle of science and philosophy, from the initial bland assumption that we people are physical objects, obeying the laws of physics, to an understanding of conscious minds.” I am not sure why he calls it a “bland assumption.” Perhaps, I need to finish reading the whole book before I find out.

Among the most striking ideas that Dennett introduces right in the Introduction is one of “Competence without comprehension”. Attached to that are two other ideas of “Feral neurons” and “Consciousness as a user-illusion”. The idea that various creatures can competently go about various tasks without the need to comprehend is both brilliant and unsettling. Creatures doing many things competently without comprehension as part of their design and not necessarily a function of their minds is quite a proposition.

Going by the Introduction alone, one gets the sense that Dennett has no problem shaking things up from their core. He speaks of human exceptionalsim over other creatures, saying, “Our human minds are strikingly different from the minds of all other species, many times more powerful and versatile.” Simultaneously, he also points out how that assertion may prompt some readers to ask questions such as “Am I a ‘species chauvinist’ who actually thinks that human minds are much more wonderful than the minds of dolphins and elephants and crows and bonbons and other clever species whose cognitive have recently been discovered and celebrated?” He goes to some length to explain his stance on this rather controversial and emotional subject.

Sure enough, the question of whether mind is matter or not comes up rather quickly. He invokes the great French mathematician, scientist and philosopher René Descartes over his idea that mind is not matter. In this context Dennett points out the extreme difficulty of how “transactions between mind and body” could not take place without violating the laws of physics.

These are hard questions whose answers continue to elude us despite such a diversity of brilliant human minds having been deployed over millennia in their quest. If mind is matter as many believe, then I suppose it has no option but to obey the laws of physics. That in turn automatically means that there are limits to what human minds can do since all laws, including the laws of physics, necessarily impose limits and restrictions.

There are times when I think that the laws of physics too have their limits in terms of the realm they control. There could well be a realm or realms beyond what we perceive to be a factual/objective realm.

I am not about to resolve such profound questions in a blog post. So let me just end it here with these two lines in Hindi that formed in my brain/mind just now:

मस्तिष्क की गरमी में मन वाष्प बन के उड़ जाता है

(In the heat of the brain, mind evaporates.)

मन वोह वाष्प है जो मस्तिष्क की गरमी से उभरता है

(Mind is vapor which rises from a heated a brain.)

*The image has nothing to do with the theme of the post but it looks mysterious enough to fit.

March 22, 2017

It is quite a learning curve to know what watercolors might look like when they dry on paper. This untitled watercolor on paper done this morning was a collection of indistinguishable splotches when wet but as it dried out it became a different picture altogether. Having worked on about a dozen watercolors in as many days I have begun to accurately anticipate what the final dried out version would look like. It is like watching a Polaroid photo coming alive. All this is magic of light.